Roman Polanski shoot with a screwmount Leica

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136495

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136495

A adult man having sex with a young girl is rape.
I care not if he was "free" to wander Europe and pursue his specialties.Whatever. There is always a reckoning.Even for an artist and genius. Whatever.
Actually Hitler hated small cameras because of the grain etc.
One of the reasons He forced Leitz/Leica and Zeiss/Jewish connection to assist the Japanese..Good move!
Maybe the OP should end this piece..angers are rising..
Everybody has bodies to hide.
 
"He is a genius—I mean, come on!”

I don't think Mr. Nicholson would be defending this pervert if it was his daughter Roman Polanski drugged and raped...

If Mr. Polanski isn't a fugitive then he should see just how long he would last on any American street before being arrested and returned to jail...

I'm shocked that Vanity Fair, a magazine that caters mostly to women would run an article about a convicted rapist...to allow him a platform where he cries about having this sword hanging over his neck, a sword that he alone placed over his own neck...

As far as the camera he's using...I don't care who made it...it's the innocent one in this story...
 
It's never about the camera or the photography in these cases here is it? The perception of the individual involved is paramount to the discussion and obviously burns a hole in the subconscious for many that will never heal.

HCB probably strangled kittens in his spare time!
 
... well I think he's pretty much a genius weather he uses a ltm or not ... and more a victim of the legal system than a fugitive from it


... anyway, when did it become illegal to strangle kittens?
 
Sparrow said:
... anyway, when did it become illegal to strangle kittens?
Click to expand...

The first animal cruelty laws apparently came into existence in the 1870s. I don't know if they applied to kittens though... probably were just meant to keep people from flogging horses to death.
 
What puzzles me is that the victim has repeatedly said that she's got over it, and she wishes that the media could do the same. This was from memory but a quick Google revealed that my memory was not at fault: cf http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...ctim-samantha-geimer-45-long-article-1.385944

If she can get over it -- if, as she says, it'd the media attention that has done her far more harm -- then why can't we respect her wishes?

Cheers,

R.
 
There's also the question of one-dimensionality, and of the foolishness of focusing on single issues/events.

Caravaggio: bisexual brawler and mudererer; major painter

Genet: petty thief, male prostitute; major writer

Polanski...

Cheers,

R.
 
There's an interesting situation when you like an artwork, but don't like the artist. Among musicians, James Brown, Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis are all people who have done and said things I find distasteful, but I love the work they produced. I prefer it when my favourite authors, musicians, comedians, photographers, visual artists, actors, directors etc have led reasonably blameless lives, and hold progressive views. But it's not always like that. Roger cites one of my favourite authors (who didn't think much of himself , either), and a painter whose work I appreciate very much.

Polanski has produced some great films (and some dreadful rubbish). I'd like to like the good ones without a bad feeling, but I can't completely divorce the work from the artist.
 
Good on her ... But the outstanding matter for the court is his sentencing for an admitted criminal act. It is an act of contempt toward the judicial system. After 6 weeks he would have realised what he faced in prison, so I can fully appreciate that he doesn't want to go back inside as a high-publicity attacker of a child. He is a great director, and will be remembered for that more than his crime. But he still has unfinished business in court, and that shouldn't be shrugged off.
 
Most artists are terrible jerks really. Not to glorify being a jerk, or make excuses, but when you really start looking at artists you realize that the creeps, jerks, and weirdos far outnumber the nice, polite, or reserved types. A good deal of artists were both tremendous jerks and extremely nice at different points in their life.

For better or for worse, depending on your perspective, if one does something really awful, it will overshadow whatever good they've done in their life. Wagner has been dead for over a century and there are still people who can't get over the fact that he was an anti-semite, and all around money grubbing jerk face when he was alive - as if it were relevant at all today.
 
Roger Hicks said:
What puzzles me is that the victim has repeatedly said that she's got over it, and she wishes that the media could do the same.
Click to expand...

It doesn't surprise me that she doesn't appreciate being identified as a rape victim by the media for the rest of her life and, if I'm not mistaken, she also received a large sum from Polanski as part of a settlement.
That being said, I don't think just because the victim got over it society as a whole should ignore the fact that a 40-odd year old man sodomized a 13 year old girl and his excuse was that she was "sexually experienced and consenting" (the age old "she's a sl*t and she wanted it").

I do agree, though, that the quality of a person's character has little to do with the quality of their work. One can appreciate Wagner even though he as an ardent anti-semite. Also, it's quite likely that a lot of great artists are horrible human beings but we just don't know about it. Doesn't really matter.
That being said, just because someone's a great artist doesn't mean he gets a pass on being an a**hole.
 
I note that all programmes about glam rock on the TV omit the towering presence of Gary Glitter.

I worked with him a few times. He was a tremendous performer, who had a run of eleven top ten hits (in the UK - I think he only had one hit in the US, but glam was never big over there anyway). He had the most astonishing stage presence I've ever seen (and I've worked with a lot of big names from various eras and styles of music and theatre). He radiated charisma. He was a lovely, unassuming bloke, quick to buy a round for all the crew down at the pub, and thoroughly charming. For all his complete control on stage, he had terrible stage fright. Quite the worst I've ever seen. He needed to be physically helped up the stairs to the stage, and nearly threw up before the show started.

And yet...

I wished the allegations about him to be untrue, but his actions following his first conviction just seem to confirm the truth about him.

Does that diminish his musical achievement, being the major force in British pop music at its height? Not really, but it does overshadow him to the extent, as I've indicated, that he is literally written out. All the better for the reputation of Slade, one of my favourite bands, who, in the absence of Glitter, seem to have been far and away the leading lights of glam for those years, but not really a true picture of what was happening musically.

Polanski should have faced justice. I think he still should. But it doesn't stop him from being a great artist. To some extent, all the greatest artists tend to be a little unusual, to say the least.
 
No argument at all that justice is one thing and talent another. I just find it odd that some people appear unable to think of ANYTHING else than the famous rape 30-odd years ago. Quite honestly I'm not a great fan of his work -- mostly because I'm not a great movie aficionado -- but equally, I don't define him ONLY as a child rapist.

Cheers,

R.
 
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